Thirteen men rose as one and ran toward the hotel, booted feet pounding across grass and pavement. With each step that he took, Loomis expected a burst of gunfire from the door which was their objective… and then they were at the door and the first men were going through. The two rebel soldiers lay sprawled where they had fallen, blood pooling around them on the sidewalk.
The roar of the helicopter was cut off as Loomis plunged in through the door. They were in a long, narrow hallway now, probably a service entrance.
According to the maps they'd studied, the lobby ought to be straight ahead, left, then right.
They left two Marines to watch their rear and kept going, more slowly now to avoid excess noise. That civilians who had been escorted out of the hotel had reported that the Americans were all together, in the lobby next to the registration desk.
Two men came around the corner dead ahead, running, AKs in their hands.
They skidded to a stop when they saw the Marines, one screaming something in That, the other simply staring, mouth open.
Loomis fired his M-16, triggering single shots which slammed into the torso of the shouting rebel. Two other Marines fired at the same moment. The second soldier pitched backward and collided with the first, the two of them sprawling in a heap on the rug. The Marines kept moving.
Rounding the last corner, Loomis almost stumbled into a mass of people sitting on the floor. They all had their hands up or on their heads, and they were staring wide-eyed at a half-dozen rebel soldiers who were covering them with guns. More armed rebels were by the windows at the other end of the lobby… lots more. Loomis estimated that there were at least twenty hostiles in that room alone.
The analysis flashed through his head in an instant. He'd already made his decision and was taking action by the time the situation had registered in his mind.
His thumb snicked his assault rifle's selector from single shot to full-auto. Normally the blindly sprayed devastation of full rock and roll wasn't worth the loss of accuracy… but this time he had little choice but to point and spray. The M-16 roared, chopping into rebel soldiers, slamming them down in blood and flailing arms.
"Down! Down!" Loomis was shouting as he cleared the door so the other Marines could come through with a clear line of fire. "U.S. Marines!
Everybody down!"
The other Marines joined in, some with carefully placed single shots, some on rock and roll. One rebel threw up his arms and pitched back over the registration desk. One tried to run and was cut down before he'd taken two steps. The hostages were screaming, a wild, eerie sound that drowned out the gunfire.
Another rebel pitched back into the lobby from the foyer near the elevators. More Marines were coming through there, the second assault team from the other side of the hotel. And from the front of the lobby, huge sheets of plate glass exploded inwards, engulfing the rebels clustered there.
"U.S. Marines!" Loomis kept shouting. "U.S. Marines! Everybody down!"
Some of the rebel soldiers were already throwing down their guns and raising their hands.
Colonel Kriangsak heard the explosion of gunfire from the lobby. He'd been racing through one of the hotel's shops with two of his men, trying to find a vantage point which would let him see inside the big helicopter's cargo bay when automatic weapons fire began its insistent, full-throated rattling elsewhere in the building.
He knew at once that an assault was underway, that the helo's arrival had been a ruse. He reached a window in time to see two lines of Marines storming down the helo's ramp and rushing the front of the building. There was a loud thump of a grenade, then another. Smoke billowed from beneath the awning over the sidewalk in front of the hotel.
Kriangsak raised his M-16, aiming at the charging Marines through the window… then lowered it again. If he opened fire, he could kill three or four, perhaps, but that would not help the coup and it would guarantee Kriangsak's own death.
SA David Howard had volunteered to help load the extra Stokes stretchers onto the big Sea Stallion that morning, never guessing that he was getting a front-row seat to a hostage rescue. The helo's cargo chief had simply asked if he wanted to come along to help with the stretchers at the other end, and handed him a cranial and a life jacket when he agreed.
He wasn't sure why he'd volunteered. He still felt the shock ― and the horror ― of the deaths of his three friends in Bangkok. There'd been no official announcement yet, but word had already spread through the Jefferson's grapevine. It was horrible.
And that same death had come so close to claiming him as well.
Maybe it was a need to lay those particular ghosts to rest… or possibly he just needed to be busy. In any case, he'd said yes.
Within minutes of receiving the emergency call from the American embassy, the helo was lifting off from the Jefferson. Howard was enthralled by the sight of the carrier ― the small city in which he'd been living for the past months ― dropping away astern until it looked like a toy, finally vanishing in the distance. The Sea Stallion had touched down at the embassy thirty minutes later and taken aboard at least fifty grim, face-blackened Marines in full combat gear. The flight to the hotel had taken only a minute or two more.
The assault on the That International Hotel was over almost as soon as it began, and Howard saw very little of it. The Sea Stallion had dropped to the pavement in front of the hotel and lowered the ramp, but the body of the aircraft was turned so that people inside the hotel could not see into the machine's cavernous cargo bay.
He waited, unable to see, packed in with at least fifty Marines who, save for their garb and weapons, seemed to be men very much like himself. Some chewed gum, others made grim jokes. Most simply stared past the padding covering the inside of the cargo bay and kept their thoughts to themselves.
It occurred to Howard that he was going into combat himself. He heard the sudden crackle of muffled gunfire.
Then the word crackled over an officer's helmet radio loudly enough for Howard to hear it. "Sunday Punch, Outpost! They're in the lobby. Take 'em down!" An order was barked, and the Marines thundered down the Sea Stallion's ramp, the tramp of their feet on metal amplified by the cargo bay walls.
"Marines!" someone yelled, and the cry was taken up and repeated by the others with one thundering voice which drowned out the noise of the rotors.
Howard heard the double bang of a pair of grenades, the smash of shattering glass, the crack of gunfire.
When the Marines were clear of the Sea Stallion, the cargo chief talked briefly with the crew through his helmet mike. Gently, the big helo lifted off the ground, rotated, and settled to earth again, this time with the open rear ramp pointed at the hotel entrance.
Smoke gushed from canisters hurled by the Marines as they'd charged.
Howard could see through the fog to the gap-toothed ruin of the front windows, could see movement inside the hotel's front lobby, but the smoke obscured his view. Four Marines crouched on the sidewalk outside, mounting guard.
He could hear more shooting over the rotor noise, even distinguish the sharp yells of the Marines, though he couldn't make out the words.
A shape moved through the smoke to one side of the entrance, a shadow in fog… followed by another… then a third.
Howard was about to shout a warning when one of the shadows opened fire on the Marines by the front door. There was a wild, confused exchange of gunfire. Two of the Marines crumpled to the ground as one of the shadows was sent spinning back against one of the pillars supporting the awning over the sidewalk. Rifle shots cracked from another direction as snipers out beyond the parking lot saw this new threat and opened fire. A ricochet struck the sidewalk, screaming.